We Could Be Heroes
by SapSorrow
Summary: Rock Star Thor/ Glam Rock Loki AU! It's the 1970's and a mistake in management sees Thor Odinson's failing heavy rock band "Terminal Deafness" paired up with glam -goth -rock - experimental - Scandinavian group "Illusion's Destiny" in one of the greatest mis-matches of the glam rock age. Chaos edless the ill paired rock stars hate each other. Hate hate hate. That's all
1. Chapter 1

**We could be heroes.**

**1.**

It was late, it was cold, it was dark and it was wet, the tour was not going well and Thor Odinson was beyond pissed off. They had lost two drummers now since the start, back in London three months ago, and god that seemed like a far off dream now, playing some crappy bar in the north of England, getting rained on all the way back to the hotel.

Thor wasn't even sure which point he wanted to rage about more vitally – crappy bar, north of England or mother-fucking rain. Again. They were supposed to be playing stadiums. They _had_ been playing fucking stadiums before _Flight Rising _bailed on them. _Fuck it, _Fandral had said, they didn't need_ Flight Rising, _they should be headlining as it was, not playing runner up for some shitty old school metal band.

_Headlining my ass, _Thor thought, wondering how quickly he could get a new agent if he fired Fandral's useless, pansy, satin clad behind. The only places they were getting to headline were sad act pubs where some creepy old local man with facial hair in all the wrong places glared at them and left when they started playing.

_Fuck this, _Thor thought for the hundredth time that day. There was water in his boots as he pulled them off and the bottoms of his jeans slapped his legs like angry wet fish. Fuck the rain, it seemed to follow him everywhere; as though it knew when he was pissy and wanted to wind him up. Fuck the shitty pubs, fuck Fandral, fuck Carlisle for all it was worth and right now especially, fuck useless-ass drummers who kept succumbing to deadly bouts of spinal tap disease.

He stomped across the room, such as it was, and when he planted a foot right in the centre of a wet pile of clothes he roared inside and wondered if the day could get any worse. At which point he spotted the flyer beside the shit-as-fuck bed. He was on the phone in seconds, bellowing Fandral to get to his room this fucking second. He was still bellowing when Fandral walked in the door.

"Thor?" he asked, with that ingratiating politeness that made Thor want to hit him.

"Don't _Thor _me you obsequious ass! The fuck is this?"

"The fuck is what?"

"_This_ you buffoon, this! _Terminal Deafness and Illusion's Destiny – _who _the fuck _are Illusion's Destiny?"

"Thor, it's good news, I was going to tell you – they're our new supporting act."

"Well I've never fucking heard of them."

"They're Scandinavian, but they've been touring the states. Apparently they're enormous in Denmark."

"Denmark?" Thor's voice was dangerously calm and Fandral missed the warning, smiling and nodding- to Thor's mind like a cataleptic monkey.

"Fandral, I don't give a fuck about fucking Denmark. _I've _never heard of them, their name is whack and – is this them?" Thor picked up a solo flyer from under the first – "They look fucking gay."

"Thor. _You're _gay. I hardly think that's relevant."

"I hardly think _you're _relevant and yet I still pay you – to do what exactly? Pitch us together with some faggy Danish goth band? We'll be the laughing stock of whatever one man and his goat you can get to come and watch us."

"Seriously Thor, at least give them a chance, they're on their way here as we speak, nobody else would agree to step in at the last minute and frankly, anything has to be better than tonight right? Also what is it with you and goats?"

"I wanna go home."

"It's raining just as hard in London."

Thor groaned, threw himself heavily onto the bed, which protested epically at this treatment, and scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand.

"They'll be here tomorrow in time for a proper gig in three days time at The Sand's Centre, we've sold seats and everything."

It was hardly the arena Thor felt sure he had been promised, but a theatre was at least a step up from a pub. Thor sighed so heavily he thought he might blow down the crappy hotel walls. Outside the wind was helping in the same endeavour.

"Fine," he groaned.

"Yeah?"

"Fine. I'll meet your lame-ass pile of wank band. But don't go making too many plans. And don't expect me to dress like them, they look like a pile of poofs with too much eye make up."

-x-

"Thor, no."

"_Please _Sif."

"Thor, I'm a bassist not a drummer."

"But you _know _drums. I got a guy can replace you on the bass, I can't get a new drummer for shit."

"Yeah, you know why? Cause the life expectancy of a drummer in a rock band is like a lemming with itchy feet on a cliff top. Thor don't make me be drummer."

Thor pleaded, Sif groaned. Thor begged, Sif was just stomping off saying that she'd do it but they'd all regret it when there was a crash and a high, supercilious voice drawling –

"No not _there _you imbeciles – _there. _Ugh, how does anyone work in this mess."

Thor glared at the newcomers, who were hauling their instruments right into and all but on

top of theirs, located the speaker, a figure of indeterminate gender in a shiny sweeping lavender coat and unceremoniously crossed the room in several loud stomps;

"Hey – this is _our _rehearsal space – who the hell are you?"

"Thor Odinson?" The speaker finally turned, smiling with utmost insincerity, the most dazzling, nastiest smile Thor had ever seen – "_Illusion's Destiny – such _a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm Loki."

A slight sneer crept into the young man's face, his eyes doing a quick once over of Thor as he said this, a once over that left it perfectly clear he had been measured and found wanting in the space of a few seconds. Thor did not take the hand that, to his mind, was pretentiously offered, taking the stranger in instead with eyes that could not have been half as scathing for all the world.

Loki Laufeyson of _Illusion's Destiny _was everything Thor had feared he would be; and worse, he was undeniably beautiful for all of that. Silver lips, violet swirls around the eyes and that faux fur lined coat that swept and circled just shy of brushing the ground. His smile dazzled and lied without his even needing to speak and his eyes seemed to reflect every colour they landed on, silver and violet with a watery wash of green underneath. He balanced like a dancer in knee-high heeled boots and the silver nails dripped with tiny rhinestones.

All in all, he was the most horrendous and affected person Thor had ever seen. He hated him on sight. He suspected in fact, in those moments, that they were both basking in a deep mutual loathing, so intense he was almost enjoying it.

"Of course you are," he sighed – "And I thought my day could get no worse."

This was not going to go well.

_x_

**Happy new year people, I seem to be back with a shiny new AU, this one's dedicated to ****_prettypearlnecklace, _****happy birthday my dear! :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

Loki was the most beautiful nightmare Thor had ever had the misfortune to work with. And he _was _beautiful; Thor wished it was easier to deny or ignore. With or without the make-up and the costumes – and apparently nobody ever saw him without even in rehearsals – he was the most captivating creature anyone had ever seen. Sequin and sparkle, feather and fur, he seemed always as though some gorgeous alien or animal creature had landed in their midst and could find nothing better to do with mankind than annoy it.

Loki sashayed through life as though it were all one big photo shoot. As though it were a music video. Even when he was lounging it was a pose. Every innocuous statement sounded affected and the affected statements sounded like they had been rehearsed well in advance. Nothing passed those perfectly curved and made up lips that did not sound perfect. Not a word dropped that sounded even slightly sincere. Any hint of what was genuine died within two metres of him.

And those lips, bruise-purple dusted with gold, black and sequined with stars, emerald green and lightning silver. They smirked and taunted , sneered and squirmed. Reflective eyes caught the shades that painted them, dazzling lightning bolts of make-up streaking one cheek, swirls and flourishes of black sweeping out from the eyes in points and curls, hints of gems in the corners of the eyes and on one occasion paper butterflies. Every feature of his face, it seemed, had to be a work of art.

_Loki _was a work of art. A walking, pretentiously talking one, and he knew it. His clothes were glorious; high heels, platforms, boots in every shade of kingfisher, marine, sunset and shadow, jeans so tight they looked as though they had been painted onto him. The first time Thor wondered how he ever undressed he found himself going furiously red, could feel the heat in his own face at just imagining it and could not imagine where that feeling had come from.

He never wore anything twice, with the exception of the emerald and swirling green pin that could always be found somewhere in his attire. Thor suspected that to a mind like that it would have been a positive sin to repeat an outfit. He was disgustingly trivial, and Thor had already told him so within the first day of attempting to share a rehearsal space. Loki had laughed affectedly as though this was a terrible compliment and replied –

"Darling, triviality is the only thing in this world worth taking seriously. We should always treat the trivial things seriously and the serious ones with sincere and studied triviality."

He had smiled at himself proudly, half consciously looking around him as though waiting for the applause, but Thor had read the occasional Wilde too and merely grunted in disgust before walking off to join his band.

Everything he said seemed to irritate Thor. Everything, it seemed, that he could manage was a rehashed witticism of somebody else's or a well-rehearsed one of his own. Even when Thor had, in frustration announced that it was impossible to have a normal conversation with him Loki had replied that the only conversations worth having were the ones it was hard to hold on to and that he should not desire anything as vulgar as normality even if one had the ill manners to offer it to him.

And then, in one unfortunate moment, Loki had overheard Thor screaming at Fandral, not for the first time –

"I just can't work with this utter cunt!"

He had turned around and Loki had just been standing there, having appeared as he often did, unexpected and silent as a shadow. He had simply slouched, ever so elegantly, back against the wall, raised a crystal glass – one Thor suspected he carried around with him as a bloody prop for such occasions- and smiled insinuatingly.

"I'm not entirely certain _cunt _is anything _you_ would wish to work with anyway," he had purred archly, raised an eyebrow, tightened his smirk and stalked out slowly and with infinite superiority.

And all this was before the issues of music between the two bands even arose.

They did arise, and fast. After an altercation that had almost resulted in a punch up between drummers, it had been agreed that first morning that _Terminal Deafness _could take first rehearsal. In the lull after playing out two songs Thor had looked up to see the place deserted apart from his own band and Loki, damn the idiot , sat with his back to a pillar at the front of his own damn stage staring at him with a look of utter horror that made his eyes look huge and innocent and his perfect face angelically wronged.

"What?" Thor yelled, looming over him, not caring by now if it seemed threatening. Loki was not threatened; he looked up at the towering, angry, brick shit house of a rock star with a look of perfect insolence and cocked his head to one side –

"So tell me –" he said, and Thor knew already that it was going to take all of his will power not to punch the little shit in the face no matter what came out of his pretty mouth next – "_Terminal Deafness _– who came up with that one? And is it something from which you all suffer or just the state your audience would like to be in when you're done?"

Thor yelled incoherently and swiped to yank Loki up by his frilly shirt front. Loki dodged easily, jumping off the stage with feline grace and laughing at him from afar;

"Well play on, play on!" he mocked, executing a flourishing bow – "I'll just be in the next room – seeking solace for my ears," he added quickly and ran off.

When _Illusion's Destiny _reappeared half an hour later Thor stomped off the stage ungraciously to let them take their turn. He had been thrown by Loki and not had a good rehearsal and he grabbed him by the shirt this time as he headed up the stage –

"This better not suck, Laufeyson, or I'll tear you a new one," he growled.

"Ugh." Loki rolled his eyes, unfazed at being manhandled by the larger man – "You're an ill -mannered oaf. And will you _please _give over with the shirt front? This is a one off retro –"

"I don't give a fuck," Thor grunted, letting go of him fast rather than to have to hear any deeper details about his thrice damned designer clothing.

Just to check, he stayed to hear what they sounded like. After the first song, Loki smirked over to him in the audience and raised an eyebrow. Thor grimaced back;

"I think –" he grunted – "I'm going to be sick."

Loki smiled as though he was utterly delighted by this, made a tiny bow in Thor's direction and slipped into the next song. They were the kind of songs that slid and slipped and segued. Despite his comment Thor was not _certain _that he hated it, but he convinced himself he did because he hated Loki. He _really _hated Loki. He thought about how much as he watched him on the stage. When Loki was on the stage it was impossible to look anywhere else. He feared he himself had nothing like that charisma and hated him all the more for it. The music transported him from the alien amongst men way up into the clouds of a night sky where the audience could not help but feel they were looking up at this splendid being from above, glittering, bird like, reptilian and angelic all at once. His voice was otherworldly, ethereal, beckoning you in to swim with the music.

Loki was captivating and Thor hated it.

-x-

They played Carlisle three nights and by the second Thor was obsessing beyond what he had ever expected, over how much he hated Loki.

To his great distress the first night had gone down well.

"It was all us you fellas," Thor heard Loki laughing to his band as they sauntered into the bar afterwards – "Us heathens bringing these reprobates a little bit of class." Thor heard the band laugh at his band's expense and had grabbed Loki by the lapel this time, almost scratching his hand on the sequins. Loki was scaled that night, like a lizard, his gorgeous suit green in some lights, purple in others, all with a hint, a glimmer of gold dust that shimmered over his face and flicked out from his hair every time he moved his head.

"Ye-es?" Loki drawled politely. Thor had been certain this time he was really going to punch him and in the face of the overly cultured question did not know quite what to do. He let go of him roughly in disgust and started to turn away when Loki's ringing voice laughed out –

"Sweetie, if you'd wanted to touch me you could have just asked."

He whipped around; this time he _was _going to punch him. Luckily Fandral for once seized a timely moment and jumped between them pronouncing –

"Good news! When we finish our run here I've secured us five nights playing the Newcastle Arena. It's a big one guys, you're doing great!"

He looked from Thor to Loki and back again, as though having only just clocked the situation he had walked into, groaned and turned away from them.

"Fuck my life," Thor grunted and Loki smiled at him beamingly –

"Oh my," he breathed – "Won't this be fun."

_x_

**By the way if I'm rude about Carlisle I'm allowed cause it's where I live :-P It's affectionate anyway, I love Carlisle. Just this one time, for a few chapters I thought it would be cute to see Thor and Loki in my home town, don't get a lot of chances for that! :-)**

**Sex will come, if not next chapter than the one after. :-)**


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

"I don't get it," Thor frowned.

"No, of course you don't," Loki sighed, as though this was only to be expected.

It was their second night playing Newcastle, and despite trying really hard not to, Thor could no longer ignore the fact that _Illusion's Destiny _were going down a lot more enthusiastically with the crowds than they were. It was all wrong; they were only supposed to be supporting and yet he felt like when _Terminal Deafness _took the stage the audience were disappointed, wanting more, always more of Loki Laufeyson and the pretentious-wank-band. It had _not _gone down well on the first night when Loki had heard Thor calling them this, but he had, as was his irritating custom, covered up his anger with a more than usually wide grin and the sweetest lilt in his voice when he swept by declaring –

"At least some of us have something to be pretentious about."

It did not help that he could see _why _people liked them. It would have been better if he had just thought they were terrible and could not understand. But Loki drew every eye in the room as soon as he was in it. It was partly the costumes, partly the stage tricks; but a lot of it was simply Loki.

"Darling I _am _the costume," he said, when Thor had pointed out that people were probably so dazzled by the look of the thing they did not care about the person or the substance – "This is where you have it so wrong. It's not a disguise. It's who I am. But you make it look like a disguise so that nobody will ever work you out." He whispered it, winking at Thor as though imparting a great secret. Thor grunted.

"Who'd you steal that bit of wisdom from?"

"Oh no –" Loki shook his head "That's pure original me, baby."

"Original bull shit. _Who _are you then? I've seen the act, you start off looking like some – shiny gay alien and end up like – what is that – a fish? And call me baby again and I _will _punch you."

"Look," Loki said patiently, as though explaining it to a child – "The act is not only an act. If it was nobody would fall for it. That's how you lie. That's how you tell a story. That's what we do, isn't it? Formulate beautiful musical lies, get the audience to believe you _are _the alien, you _are _the fish. But you have to believe it yourself or they never will."

"And so – what – you're a fish alien?"

Loki rolled his eyes. It was at this point that Thor announced he didn't get it.

"Of course you don't," Loki sighed – "Okay. Listen –" he leaned in across the table in the hotel bar, grimaced, realised it was slightly sticky and lifted his sleeves off it with precious disgust – "The act tells a story. Each song is a chapter in the story –"

"So?" Thor leaned in, not giving a crap about the beer stains – "Tell me the story."

"Do you want me to rock you to sleep when I'm done?"

"Shut up Loki."

"Fine. In the beginning –" Loki closed his eyes. Treating Thor to the full view of his perfect kingfisher blue eye shadow with a silver streak like a fish in the centre, he nodded, opened them again, his voice had dropped to the sonorous hum of the storyteller. Thor didn't want to be hooked, but he was despite himself, Loki dazzled the eye in the tight silver fish scale suit like sunlight on the water and his voice was the murmur of a stream - "The alien is a trickster from another planet, he comes down to earth and doesn't know his place; nobody understands him, he doesn't understand himself. That's the first song."

Thor could picture it; on stage Loki began in green and gold, appearing in a beam of light cutting across the stage, sparks of light danced from his hands from something he could only assume he had hidden up a sleeve, a great cloak of green swirled around him and behind him, dancing in a play of lights in the same colour until you did not know what was light and what was cloak.

"He tricks them. He captivates them. He helps them, over and over again, every time a trick goes well they're in awe, yes, but they also take it as their due. Then when a plot goes wrong they turn on him and blame him, every time. He doesn't care, dances on to the next game. Even when the gods intervene he does not care for them either. Same story, he helps them, bends them, tricks them again. We've got a lot of songs to cover various instances but not enough space in the act for all of them yet."

"But why the fish?"

"I'm _getting _to that! The trickster is a shape shifter; you see it in the costume changes throughout the act. He's a horse, a bird, a woman. In the end he upsets everyone so much he takes the form of a fish to escape their wrath."

"And does he? Escape?"

"Of course not," Loki grinned – "That's what the last song _Venom _is all about. We've got this whole big set up planned for it – but right now I can't work out the costume change – hence the fish –"

He gestured at the last outfit- that he was still wearing despite the act being long over.

"I do like it though –" he smiled, almost sweetly, stroking his own shoulder – "It's so – _shiny."_

Thor sighed.

"You can't just get on stage and sing songs like a normal person?" Loki just looked at him with the most glittering condescension, that made Thor feel uncomfortably as though Loki could see right through him and knew that he was only saying this because he didn't want to admit to any jealousy of the thought Loki had put into his work.

"I really hate you Loki." Thor got up on that note and went over to the bar, Loki watching him intently and whispering behind his back –

"Do you now?" He grinned to himself; if anyone was really the fish here it was Thor and it was ridiculous how easy such a catch was proving to reel in. He was not even faintly surprised when Thor returned to their table, all the while making an incredibly terrible show of looking around to see that there was nobody else available to join.

"So why are you here?" Thor asked – "If you're so much better than us, why agree to it?"

"Look, I didn't want this any more than you did. But as it is our supporting band abandoned us too and we're strangers in a strange country here. It was either this or some crappy bar in Soho where the only patrons are a couple of scary old queens in a corner babbling away in Polari and eyeing me up like I'm their next meal."

"You speak Polari?"

"Ah naff off you omi palone, I look blue to you?" Loki raised his eyebrows with a grin.

"Kinda," Thor smirked back, then looked away awkward that this might have been perceived as flirting when in fact it – might have been;

"So – what did he do?"

"What did who do?"

"Your trickster. How'd he piss everyone off so much they wanted to kill him? He annoy them half to death being a pretentious little shit?"

"Oh, you wound me," Loki clasped his chest dramatically – "But yes, in a way; well first he brought about the death of their most beloved hero but then –"

"Oh there's worse than that?"

"Oh yes –" Loki's grin was almost threatening – "Then he made them all take a good look at themselves."

"Doesn't sound so bad."

"Try it. You'd be wanting to kill me too."

"What do you mean – would be?"

"I dislike you, Odinson."

"Finally –" Thor nodded, although it was about the friendliest they had been – "Something we agree on."

_x_

**Quick fyi: for anyone not familiar, Polari is/ was a form of British slang used by actors, criminals and all manner of underworld show folk, popular in the in the gay subculture of the 1970s, essentially it was used as a non – incriminating way of finding out if the person you were talking to was gay. Essentially Loki told Thor to "Fuck off you big lady-boy, do I look gay to you?" In other words making it clear that he was. :-)**

**And yes, Loki's act is a combination of Norse mythology and Ziggy Stardust. :-)**


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

It was the last night of the tour; a tour that had gone fantastically well but, as far as Thor was concerned, for all the wrong reasons. Loki, _Destiny's Illusion, _the increasingly fervent fan base that seemed to be growing for them both and above it all was Loki, always Loki. The more popular they became the more obnoxious he seemed to grow, and if someone had said this to Thor when he first set eyes on the irksome bastard he would have laughed and said that was impossible.

It was over now, they were back in London, and Loki would be gone in the morning. For all of this he should have been happy, relieved; he should have been overwhelmed with fucking ecstasy. But he wasn't. He could not even begin to put his finger on why, but he was not happy at all.

They were celebrating – supposed to be celebrating – in a private bar they had hired for the event, on top of a roof, a beer garden looking down on the cars and the lights below shimmering like stars in a sky seen from the wrong way round. All around him the two bands were raucous with celebration, hanging out and laughing, all grudges temporarily forgotten, even Sif laughing with the other band's drummer as though they had not frequently had to be prised apart from coming to blows the whole way through the tour. He knew his voice should have been the loudest in the throng. He should have been among them, not slouching in the corner by the wall, brooding over- what- he did not even know.

"Cheer up Odinson!" came the last voice he wanted to hear close to his ear – "You'll have got rid of us soon enough. Lighten up – have a drink!" He looked up from the ground at which he had been adamantly glaring, right into Loki's grinning – and, in the low light and starlight, suddenly breath-taking face.

"I'll lighten up tomorrow," he grouched back, swallowing heavily.

"Too bad I won't be around to see it."

"If you were, trust me I wouldn't."

"Oh Thor," Loki sighed, light and affectionate as though they were friends – "Why do you have to always be so mean?"

"Go away Loki," he scowled, wondering himself. This wasn't like him. Not at all. He didn't know where it came from, he _didn't _– he told himself so often and emphatically enough. Loki looked at him curiously, like a cat deciding how much longer it should toy with its prey;

"You know what I think it is?" he drawled, inching a little closer, and he was already more in Thor's space than he was even faintly happy with. When Thor just grunted, Loki went on regardless, of course;

"_I _think –" he purred, in the smug way of someone who thinks that because they think it, it has to be true – "You just don't like knowing that we were better than you. That _is _it – isn't it?"

"It is not." Thor gritted out – "And you are _not _better than us."

"Oh please –" people were starting to look at them now, worried looks from both bands, and it was obviously under these circumstances that Loki, rather than follow up with a well- timed insult or scathing witticism went straight into the kill with an unexpectedly crude – "You're shit and you know you are."

There was the sound of a couple of dozen people not quite gasping and Sif closing her eyes in a face palm without the gesture.

"You little –" it was as far as Thor got before grabbing Loki by his soft and feathered collar and hurling him into the wall, holding him there with a rough pinch around the back of the neck as though holding a scratching angry cat. He was seconds from punching him – he told himself afterwards – when he saw the grin and the look of unmistakable satisfaction in the mocking green eyes. He trembled with rage, muscles straining in the arm that held Loki off the ground against the wall;

"Get out," he spat. When nobody moved he roared it – "EVERYBODY GET OUT!"

There was the sound of reluctant shuffling as all the while Thor's eyes burned into Loki's.

On the way out Fandral whispered nervously to Sif – "Is this wise? They're gonna kill each other."

This time Sif really _did _roll her eyes –

"Fandral –" she sighed – "You really are quite emphatically stupid."

-x-

As soon as the roof was clear, Thor slammed his lips viciously into Loki's. He dropped him enough for Loki to be on his feet but his fingers did not release any of their hold on his neck and Loki leaned up and into the kiss, pushing back as though it was a fight after all. It _was _an attack, teeth and lips and hands, grasping, shoving and desperate; the first time he broke off for air he wished he had not, for Loki rolled his eyes and hissed a triumphant –

"_Finally."_

Instead of punching, Thor slapped him and Loki wound his arms around him like an aggressively growing vine, twisting into him as though Thor's limbs were the tree around which he would grow.

"I hate you Loki," Thor growled, pressing himself, hard and painful, against the perfect lithe form, crushing him into the wall;

"The fuck's that got to do with anything?" Loki hissed back, clever hands under Thor's shirt, nails ripping down his back like the claws of some small feral animal. The pain was divine and Thor responded in kind, hands kneading and bruising, dragging Loki's shirt off to see the red marks and bruises spread across the perfect pale skin. Loki hissed as Thor bent to lick and bite at his neck; he had been starving for this and he should have known it. Thor muttered a curse as his shaking fingers tried to work at Loki's belt buckle; it was silver and complex, twisted like a snake;

"Impatient oaf," Loki muttered, but he helped and had almost turned round, pressed his own face into the wall before Thor could shove him there; he wrapped a hand around his cock before he became too trapped to move, wriggled the other into his pocket to hand Thor the small bottle of lube he had kept there. Thor growled in irritation at Loki's forethought, irritated that he had known this would happen, but more than that relieved that he would not have to struggle; his erection was huge and hurting and he rubbed the oil in with a grunt, cursing in pleasure as he finally shoved in. Loki's cries were muffled in the wall and his eyes leaked but he pushed back, needy and wanting;

"Now who's impatient?" Thor murmured in his ear; he would have made him wait but he couldn't, just thrust in hard and fast, pressing his whole body in to feel the sweet softness of Loki's skin against him as he did; he had not known he would want _that _so much, or that he would nuzzle his shoulder and the unbearably sweet curve of his neck. His eyes closed in bliss when he came, but Loki's rolled upwards so that when he came shortly after it was staring up at the stars.

Thor pulled away abruptly; not entirely sure what he was going to do, he found himself frowning. He had not thought he would miss the contact. He thought he would feel some sense of finality. He did not. Loki turned, smiled, decided for him, with a small hand curling as far as it could around Thor's wrist and pulling him down beside him as he slid down against the wall, pulling him against him, almost over him as though he were sleepy and Thor was a blanket.

Thor's mind formed a bewildered, gasping _oh _– and it felt as though he had been kicked in the chest by a horse; he looked at Loki and those eyes seemed to pull him in. When he found himself, within minutes, needing him again, this time he had to make it with Loki on his back, looking down into that beautiful, intriguing face, stroking him more gently than he had ever wanted.

The whole night they stayed there, on and under a pile of coats and clothes, leather and sequins, fur and steel. Loki's kisses left Thor breathless and Loki in turn became breathless at his touch. Every time it felt like the whole world had changed they looked up to see the stars remaining the same, the cool of the wind on their heated faces whispering a promise to tantalise and terrify.

Thor never remembered falling asleep but when he woke up it was with Loki's head pressed into the crook of his arm and the rest of him, curled up like a cat trying to fit his whole self against his chest. He smiled up at Thor with streaked eyeliner and glitter on his cheeks and Thor felt a moment of sharp stabbing pain, knowing himself and almost knowing Loki and knowing how this was going to go, wishing they could both be different.

He kissed him in the red light creeping over the lip of the roof, kissed him until Loki took his early morning need in hand, swinging up onto him and riding like he was a horse into the breaking dawn. Thor held his hips and barely needed to move, simply stared up into his face, his outline almost a shadow against the sunrise, _beautiful shadow – _he thought – _how will I know who I am if turn and do not see you there? _

But when it was over the morning was a grey one, the sun weak and the rain starting to fall. There were dull rainbows watery on their hands when Loki turned away and barely said goodbye and he, wanting nothing else in the world than to do otherwise, turned away too, backing away from an intensity of feeling too much for him to handle.

It was not until later, as he shrugged his jacket on with a heavy sigh, that he noticed the green gem pinned to the lapel, glinting up at him and laughing like a strange green star with a secret hidden closely inside.

_x_

**Don't cry! Nobody cry! This is obviously not the end! Heaps more to go from here. :-)**


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

The seventies had crashed into the eighties in an explosion of music and sequins. _Terminal Deafness _had run with the era, crashing through walls of noise and sound and expectation and coming out dirtier, tighter and with the new name of _Hammerthrow _that seemed to be working for them better. Thor Odinson was the rock star of the era, adorning many a teenager's bedroom in leather pants and dripping oil, glaring moodily out from every pose with those bright blue eyes all the fans agreed should not be as dark and brooding as they were.

It seemed that Thor's appeal had come to largely reside in an air of sadness and loss. He read it over and over again in the reviews and commentaries. His fucking _Rolling Stone _Interview had asked "What is the Thunder god of Rock missing? What tragedy hides in those eyes? Whatever it is it has fuelled the bands shrieking rush to the stars, and we can only hope to see more of it."

_Great, _he thought, _every fucker out there wants a piece of my tragedy. What fucking tragedy? _He looked in the mirror longer every day than a man ought, peering closely for a hint to his own trauma, convinced he had no idea. He was so convinced that in truth he _had _no idea, no idea of what he had lost or any conception that there had ever been anything to lose.

When he took to drinking somewhat heavily in the face of all this bullshit, his adoring fans just took it as another great move on the part of their hero. Further evidence that Thor Odinson was growing into the perfect star.

And now then a story could be glimpsed behind the words of his songs. Even though he growled and argued with anyone who came to him with interpretations and suggestions as to the meanings of his words there was a coherent theme that could not be denied. Only those who knew him knew better than to ask. The one time Fandral had come to him asking if they could cut his song _Silver Tongue _out of the night's set, he had gone away afraid that the rock star was actually going to kill him. As it was he had downed half a bottle of Jack in one and then thrown the bottle at the wall near his head.

"We don't cut out _Silver Tongue._ Ever," was all he had said and in tones of utter finality – "Anything else you would like us to cut?" he had added, dangerously. Fandral had squeaked out a row of negatives and exited fast, relieved he had not also suggested _Green Eyes _as well, as he had previously been considering.

He did not answer questions about the identity of the girl in _Green Eyes_. Or _Wildfire. _Or _Lie to me. _Once some smart arse fan had actually asked him if they were all the same person and he had answered his standard which was no answer at all.

But he was fine. He was good. Fucking good. Didn't give a crap about the bullshit. Thor Odinson was _loving _his success, loving fame, loving being in the spotlight. When nobody asked anything too awkward it was agreed that he was the number one person in the country to have at your party. _Everybody _wanted to hang with him and he was a great guy to hang with. The whole rocking world knew that. Only –

Only you never saw a man get moody so fast. You never saw anybody go from being the shining sun in the centre of the room to falling in on themselves like a black hole. It could happen without warning, just a change in the music could trigger it; there were songs that sent him imploding inwards, lost to the rest of the world.

Sif had noticed. She was the only one to have seen the pattern. It was not just any song that did it. It wasn't a whim or the kind of chord that made a person cry. It was_ Lokasenna. _It was only ever _Lokasenna. _She did not mention it to him ever, any more than she would have said that _she _knew damn well all of his songs were about the same girl and it was no girl.

She had kept track of _Illusion's Destiny _just as she knew that Thor had when they returned to America, becoming _Loki's Flyting _and finally _Lokasenna. _She saw his face every time one of their songs came on and she wished every time that she had banged a couple of idiot heads together when she still had the chance.

Loki was completely and utterly adored over there. Well she had seen that coming if not the extent of it. His fans were _insane. _Young girls would reference him in suicide notes for suicides that never actually took place, young girls _and _boys would camp out for days in wait for a ticket and then for days before a concert. He was sent death threats and marriage proposals daily. Young people would run at him naked in the street for a chance of his autograph across their chest, they would all but live outside a house they believed to be his and never was. Loki had become a master of subterfuge, putting out fake contact details and addresses every few weeks in the hope of putting off his more ardent fans. It worked for the most part, though he still had an unflushable array of persistent groupies every time he went on tour.

"You've no right getting jealous, you know," Sif had said, the one time she had actually talked to Thor about this.

"I'm _not _fucking jealous" he had growled.

"Oh spare me." She rolled her eyes – "You may be able to put one over on the rest of the world but you'll not work that on me". She was sprawled on a sofa in the midst of party debris, streamers caught in the black fringe of her skirt – "Look around you, Thor. You have groupies of your own. You could have _anyone _you damn well wanted and you know it. You can't spend your whole life mourning the one that got away."

"Watch me," he had snarled, the closest to admitting anything he had ever come. She had watched him. She had watched his eyes slide back to the television playing in the background where the music video for _Bring on the thunder _slid by in sickening silver detail as Loki itemised himself for all to see, pimped himself out in his glitter and satin, emerald framed eyes, black lips, silver pointed fingernails tracing along a wall. She watched him stare at it all furiously before she hauled herself up and flounced off in disgust. _Five years,_ she thought, _five fucking years. _

And then, on the back of his '83 Lightning Bolt tour a new burst of enthusiasm hit. All of a sudden a great meeting of the band and all involved therein was called and Fandral was asking him who he would most like to meet in America.

"This a trick?"

"No trick." Fandral was grinning like this was all one hundred percent his own doing – "It's time. We're gonna hit America and _you _–" pointing at Thor – "Get to do a promo with any American star of your choosing."

The band whooped and yelled and chucked out suggestions. All except Sif; all the thought was _fuck _and _Thor – don't. _But he did.

"Loki Laufeyson," he said, intent glittering golden in his eyes for the first time anyone had seen in five years – "I want Loki Laufeyson."

_x_

**Well, my beta and beloved summed this up in the words "They're such big stupid babies". They are. Sorry about the lack of Loki in this chapter, but of course he will be with us again in the next! *Drum roll* :-)**


End file.
